


A Love of Things That Grow

by I_Will_Go_Down (ZeroToWeirdo)



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bilbo Remains In Erebor, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, M/M, Spymaster Nori (Tolkien), Thorin is a Softie, he's also a great husband, includes gardening, this is fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 08:36:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7094551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeroToWeirdo/pseuds/I_Will_Go_Down
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin seemed to be walking on air as he entered the breakfast hall, sharing a quick conspiratory smile with Ori and Nori, before sitting next to Bilbo. He couldn’t help but press a smile into Bilbo’s curly hair in greeting, so was the extent of his glee, when Bilbo said something he would never have expected.</p><p>“Sweetheart, what did you bury in the garden?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Love of Things That Grow

Thorin seemed to be walking on air as he entered the breakfast hall, sharing a quick conspiratory smile with Ori and Nori, before sitting next to Bilbo. He couldn’t help but press a smile into Bilbo’s curly hair in greeting, so was the extent of his glee, when Bilbo said something he would never have expected.

“Sweetheart, what did you bury in the garden?”

In an instant, Thorin, Ori and Nori froze in shock. All the sneaking about had apparently not paid off after all. Thorin could feel his surprise courting gift slipping through his fingers. He had been planning this for weeks, ever since he had found the large acorn in one of the abandoned halls the company had used for sleeping when they had first arrived at Erebor.

Thorin had meant to tell Bilbo that he’d found it, truly he had, but he had been so busy with Kinging and all, that eventually it had been days and then Thorin didn’t really know how to bring it up. Then Bilbo had made his grand announcement that he was going to **‘** _ **leave’** _ and **‘ _go home_ ’**, whatever _that_ meant (considering how Erebor was his home now) and of course it slipped his mind completely and different words came out of his mouth instead. Confession-type words. He had been assured that they were heartfelt and passionate words, but they had been uttered in such a state of panic that he didn’t really know what they were aside from that they did not include the location of the acorn.

And so, considering how he had unwittingly kept it secret that he was indeed housing that acorn in a little box in his room, and considering that he was in the middle of designing and constructing a balcony garden as his courting gift, it only made sense that he make a spectacle of returning the acorn to Bilbo.

With that in mind, he commissioned Ori on the mission of finding out how to plant oak tree acorns. Barely a day had passed before the first crisis occurred, when Ori came rushing to the royal chambers and asked to see the acorn. When asked why, he produced an elvish text and read aloud “Chapter three, The Growth and Care of Oaks, paragraph two…during the season…start to fall…ah! There, when an acorn falls it should be planted _immediately,_ and should you take too long it will rot on the inside, which you can infer from shaking the acorn. Should it rattle, it is a lost cause.” Sharing a look of pure trepidation, Thorin and Ori couldn’t help mentally tallying the days, weeks, which had gone by since their stay at Beorns.

Almost entirely sure that he had doomed the acorn with his procrastination, Thorin produced the acorn from the box, cradling it gently in his hand before handing it to Ori. Reverently, Ori picked it up between his index finger and his thumb and gave it three short shakes. They both sighed in relief as the acorn didn’t make a sound.

Ori grinned down at the acorn in wonder. “Beorn’s soil is truly blessed. Well, crisis averted, now we need to boil it.”

“Are you mad?!” Thorin hissed, snatching the acorn back from Ori.

“Well, not till it _actually_ boils. Here, let me translate.”

And so, Ori and Thorin spent the rest the day mulling over the steps to planting an acorn, which was really quite complicated when they seemed to grow just fine on their own in the wild. It took a lot of strength not to just call it quits and give it back to Bilbo lest they muck-up and destroy the acorn, but Thorin was nothing if not a stubborn Dwarf. After the means of planting the acorn had been discussed, then came the logistics of the project. Where would it be in the garden (they decided on the exact centre) and how would they keep the planting a secret from Bilbo, who was on a chatty first name basis with all the guards surrounding the garden (they decided on planting the seed early in the morning while Bilbo still slept, and they brought in Nori to help with distracting the guards while Thorin planted the acorn). They had covered all their bases, surely. How had Bilbo been made aware?

“Sweetheart?”

Ah yes, Thorin realised now that he’d been staring in shock at his soon-to-be-consort for quite some time now. The Hobbitish endearment (and truly, how Hobbitish to call your One by a taste or food) brought Thorin back to the present with a start.

“Oh…that was…” eyes darting about, trying to find some sort of help, but Ori and Nori seemed suddenly very interested in their breakfast.

“Ah…was it a surprise, by any chance?” Bilbo asked sweetly, a knowing look in his eyes.

With a deep, resigned sigh, Thorin nodded. “It was supposed to be…I thought I had done well in sneaking around you.”

“Oh honey,” oh, now he was a condiment. “You do remember that you hired me to sneak around a dragon, right? I think sneaking is more my thing, than yours. Though Nori did a really good job in distracting my guards.” The sound of Nori chocking on his breakfast bagel made the spoiled surprise a little easier to handle. But only a little.

“I planted the acorn.” Thorin muttered under his breath.

Shock canvased Bilbo’s face, his jaw dropping wordlessly and his eyes going wide. Whether a good shock or a bad shock, Thorin didn’t know. So he did what he did best and kept talking.

“I got Ori to research Elvish planting, so we wouldn’t kill it by accident. We…we boiled it and everything.”

Bilbo’s expression didn’t falter. Some of the company had stood up and begun stealthily leaving the room. Thorin could feel his pulse quickening.

“Wait no! No, not boil! I mean we put it over the fire and – no, that sounds like we roasted it. It was in water, and we heated it, and then I…I tried my best.”

Bilbo blinked once, twice, before looking around quickly and realising he and Thorin were now alone in the hall. Clearing his throat gently, he faced Thorin one more time, his face serious as death. Oh by Mahal, had Thorin somehow mucked this up?

“You researched planting an acorn?”

“Yes.”

“Using Elvish texts.”

“Yes.”

“And you got Nori to distract the guards, and went to plant it at dawn to avoid being noticed.”

“Yes.”

“And when were you going to clue me in, exactly?”

“Once it was sprouting…so I would be sure, and so you could help in caring for it because I don’t quite know ho-OOMPH!”

Thorin had not anticipated Bilbo throwing himself into Thorin’s arms and hugging him so tightly, air forsook his lungs. Even with his ribs creaking in unusually strong, trembling Hobbit arms, Thorin could only grin and hug his One back.

“So, I didn’t mess up, then?”

Bilbo shook his head emphatically.

“Is it a Hobbit thing?”

An affirmative hum.

“So, you’re happy?”

I took a while before Bilbo composed himself enough to look up, and even then his eyes were glistening in happy tears as he smiled brightly at his love.

“You’ve already given me a new home, and a new family…you’ve shown me love. You’ve gifted me with a garden. And in that garden you’ve planted, with your own hands, a seed that gave me hope in such dark days, that united us even when you…when you hardly saw me anymore. A seed that will grow into a tree is your namesake. Thorin, I am very, very happy. I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy in my entire life.” He buried himself once more into Thorin’s chest as though he too wanted to be planted there, like a seed, roots digging deep and never to part.

Thorin felt no objection to this, of course. This was precisely what he intended. By his own hand, he would care for this love between Bilbo and him, and watch it grow with his One by his side. And just as the oak tree roots would tunnel and lock in dirt and rock, so too would he and his hobbit be, if he had anything to say about it. Thorin was nothing if not a stubborn Dwarf, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written based off of a randomly generated dialogue: “Sweetheart, what did you bury in the garden?”
> 
> You can find [this fic](http://iwillgodown.tumblr.com/post/137764387944/a-love-of-things-that-grow), and a few others, on [my tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/iwillgodown)
> 
> If you'd like to prompt me something/anything, just tell me in the comments, or my tumblr. I don't really mind if its anon or not, as long as you don't feel upset when I can't tag you in it due to anonymity :-/


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